


I Must Bide

by Taskir



Category: Memphis Belle (1990)
Genre: Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Sex Work, Kissing, M/M, Smoking, World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-09
Updated: 2018-12-09
Packaged: 2019-09-14 23:22:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,848
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16922385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Taskir/pseuds/Taskir
Summary: Originally written in 2002 as a birthday gift for my then-fiancee (now wife).  Transferred from DiaryLand to LJ to here.





	I Must Bide

Danny sighed, leaned against the chilled metal of the barracks building and took another deep, grateful breath of the night air. To the usual cloud of cigarette smoke, hair cream, and sweaty bodies that he had privately dubbed "Parfum d'Guerre", the party had added another positively delightful layer: heavily perspiring girls who apparently believed that due to rationing, they ought to bathe in perfume instead of water. He had had to escape into the night, where the air difference was so marked he almost shivered in it.

From his vantage point in the shadows, he watched the last few stragglers make their way out of the building. One or two had girls on their arms and were probably hoping to find a shadowed spot of their own before the captains came around to check beds--not that many would tonight. Danny wondered, not for the first time, what exactly motivated a girl to think that a captain was a better screw than a private.

He liked to lose himself in meaningless thoughts like this sometimes--especially late at night, before missions. He couldn't explain exactly why, but doing such idiotic and pointless things relaxed him. Trying to discern a mathematical formula for the ratio of how much a captain, or a general even, would get laid in comparison to someone lower on the military hierarchy was one of the more risque thoughts that occupied his mind, but as long as it was occupied by something other than his goddamned plane, he'd be happy.

Caught up in his thoughts, Danny fumbled for his cigarettes and placed one in his mouth. Awkwardly replacing the pack in his pocket halfway, he reached for his lighter. Suddenly out of the corner of his eye he saw a flash of flame. His first instinct--to jump out of the way--was quickly followed by his second: Oh shit, a raid.

He opened his mouth to give an alarm, but had barely drawn a breath when he felt a large hand covering his mouth and heard Clay's warm laughter.

"Hey, it's just me! Calm down for crissakes. From the look on your face you’d think the base just got blown up."

Danny's cheeks turned pink and warm, and he pushed Clay's hand away before the other man could tell he was blushing.

"Well, you shouldn't sneak up on people like that. I mean shit, what would you do if you saw a flame out of the corner of your eye?"

"Go grab some marshmallows?"

Danny blinked for a moment, then broke into a laugh.

"You, buddy, are certifiable. You hear me? Definite Section 8 material."

Clay smiled again as he put a cigarette to his own lips and offered one to Danny, which he took.

"Yeah, well at least I'm not staring off into space. Can I borrow your lighter?"

Danny shrugged and handed it to him. "I've told you, that's just how I relax."

"Right, right...I don't get that."

"What don't you get?"

"You. A smart guy like you actually choosing not to think for a bit. Hell, why a smart guy like you is in this shitstorm in the first place." Artfully, he spun the wheel on the lighter, touched the flame to his cigarette, and then held it out to Danny. "Why a smart guy like you hangs around with a dipstick like me."

Gently, Danny took Clay's wrist and guided the lighter to where he could reach the wavering flame with his cigarette. He snapped the lighter closed, leaving his hand resting lightly over Clay's, feeling the warmth of both. As he did, he searched Clay's eyes, uncertain if that last remark was meant in jest, or sincere. It was so hard to tell with Clay sometimes. One minute he would as solemn as a choirboy and in the next, as lively as the same choirboy right after church was let out.

He removed the smoke with his free hand and exhaled heavily, choosing his words as carefully and lightly as possible. "Do you really need me to answer that question?"

Clay sighed and broke the contact to tap the gathering ash from his cigarette. He gazed out to the landing strips, not looking at Danny. The two of them smoked in silence for a moment before Clay found his voice to answer.

"I don't know if I want you to answer the question, Danny. But...I do think I need you to."

Danny threw his smoke down and ground it into the dirt forcefully. "What the hell is that supposed to mean? How am I supposed to answer that?"

Clay followed suit, and finally turned to face him, brown eyes wide and almost black in the dim light. "What it means, Danny, is this: What happens when this is all over? You have this great life waiting for you, and I don't know if you're gonna find room for me in it. Why'd somebody like you want a poor, ignorant, cornpone, hillbilly dirt-farmer for a friend, much less..." He turned away swiftly and hit the wall next to him with his fist, sending out a deep, resonating clang that made Danny absurdly think of a gong and momentarily brought him out of the revirie he'd been in. He'd been listening to Clay utterly dumbfounded, his mouth hanging open slightly.

He reached out and placed a hand on Clay's shoulder, rubbing it gently. Wrapping his other arm around Clay's waist, he could feel the tension in the taller man's body.

"Clay," he murmured, "What brought this on? Why are you bringing this up now?"

Clay exhaled, and Danny could feel the rigidity slowly leaving him.

"I don't know, Danny...it's just...I'm scared."

"But why? We're almost done; we go home after tomorrow and then we won't have to deal with this shit anymore."

"Yeah, but what if something happens tomorrow? And even if it doesn't, what about when we go home? I heard about what you said to the guys from Mother and Country. 'We come from all over, we might never see each other again'. Is that really what you want, Danny? For this never to have happened? Forget that I existed and settle down someplace with a girl?"

"Clay, I don't understand why you'd ever think--"

"Because that's the kind of shit that happens. I knew guys who were qu--who were like us back home, Danny. I met plenty when I worked at Mama Gina's. Guys with wives and kids at home would come by all the time, ignore every girl in the place, and once they’d had a drink or five they say that all they really want is some guy to fuck 'em or suck 'em off."

Danny felt and heard Clay's breath hitch, tightened his grip around the other man's waist and buried his face between Clay's shoulder blades.

"Clay...shit, I'm sorry...I didn't know...but it won't be like that, I swear--"

Clay spun around, sudden and angry, the quick movement shaking Danny loose and causing him to stumble. Clay saved Danny from falling completely by grabbing his forearms, and searched his face, eyes shining.

"How do I know, Danny? How the hell do I know that for sure?"

With infinite care, Danny reached out his hand and brushed and errant lock of hair out of Clay's face, tracing fingers down his temple and letting his palm rest on Clay's cheek.

"You're right about one thing. You are ignorant. I'm not gonna leave you or forget about you, dumbass, because I love you." The corners of his mouth turned upward in a slight smile. "Even though you do think that 'Danny Boy' is a romantic song."

Clay blinked slowly, his turn to search his friend's face for clues. He stared into Danny's eyes, trying to see his fate reflected in the greenish-blue pools.

"Do you really mean that?"

Danny's face was as open and honest as daybreak. "Of course I do." The creeping smile returned. "I mean, have you ever actually heard the other verses?"

Clay continued to stare, making Danny distinctly uncomfortable. By now, he would have expected Clay to laugh, or make a joke of his own, or at the very least light a cigarette, something. But he simply continued to stand in contemplation. Finally, he couldn't take it any more and broke the silence, feeling horrible for doing so, as if he'd interrupted some kind of ritual.

"Clay, I--"

His words were swallowed by Clay's lips on his. Clay murmured something, nipping at Danny's slightly open lips, urging them to part further.

Every time he'd been with someone else: his high-school girlfriend, the hooker his best friend bought for him before he'd shipped out, some English chippie that'd thrown herself into his arms at a dance...there had always been a point, with each one of them, where things had become distinctly blurred. The lines of the world softened and melted like cheap wax, and Danny always had the peculiar sensation that he was floating away, not really part of what was going on right in front of him (or below or on top of him for that matter). Things that were supposed to happen did, without much fuss from either party, and when it was over, the world resumed its usual shape.

But with Clay, the entire process was reversed. From the first, he hadn't had to do much more than brush up against him, or say Danny's name, and the world jumped into a streamlined, perfect focus, better than reality. Everything became starkly outlined, as if being viewed through a microscope. The first time Clay had put his mouth on a part of Danny that wasn't anywhere near his face, Danny waited for the melting, floating feeling to come take him away, and regretted that it would...but it never did. He stayed, he was present, and he seemed to see each individual hair on Clay's bobbing head separately, even when he closed his eyes.

Danny marveled over this phenomenon yet again as Clay pulled his shirt up and slid a calloused hand along his stomach, and he let his own hands drop to Clay's shoulders, rubbing them lightly as he pulled him closer. Clay flicked his tongue along Danny's one final time before breaking the kiss and moving to his neck. 

Somewhere in the middle of himself fumbling with the buttons of Clay’s shirt and the increased pounding of blood in his ears as Clay licked a long, sure swipe from the hollow of his neck to the sensitive spot right below his earlobe, he became aware that Clay was humming. As Clay reached his ear, he could make out the tune in earnest and chuckled lightly.

Danny shivered, feeling Clay's breath, warm and damp against his ear as he half-whispered, half-sung into his ear.

"Oh Danny boy, oh Danny boy, I love you so..."

And as Clay's hand popped the buttons on his straining trousers and slid inside with urgent certainty, Danny decided that in the right context, this was a romantic song.

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written in 2002 as a birthday gift for my then-fiancee (now wife). Transferred from DiaryLand to LJ to here.


End file.
